


Lies Taste Better Chased With Champagne

by GhostGreenSigns



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-10-14 05:29:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10529886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostGreenSigns/pseuds/GhostGreenSigns
Summary: "Helen laughed like a cartoon character, Ha, Ha, Ha!, it was an intimidating laugh that tended to make men suspect that they were possibly the brunt of it.""Declan had the same way of taking a room and shaking it's hand."-The Raven BoysFaced with a new threat, Declan and Helen team up to keep both of their families safe against creepy politicians, shady artifact buyers, and exes.





	1. Chapter 1

He has a strong nose. That’s at least what her mother had said about him. A strong nose and a good head of hair. Helen is eying his croquette while sipping a mimosa. She should have ordered that. Not that her omelet isn’t good but now that she sees his-

“And my mother thinks that the blush dress is a bit too modern.” He finishes, dabbing at his mouth with the cloth napkin. She spins the ring on her left finger underneath the table. It’s a hefty thing, she’s already returned the original and chosen her own but it still doesn’t look right on her finger. Maybe she’ll trade it in again before the engagement party. 

“Your mother wears White Diamonds, George. I’m not going to listen to her when it comes to my dress.”

He purses his lips.

“Our bill should have been here by now.” He says, changing the subject. 

“We’re still eating.”

“It’s a courtesy, they have no idea how busy we are.”

“We aren’t, that’s why we are having brunch. Brunch isn’t a busy person’s meal, George.”

He sits his napkin down and storms off towards the bar. She reaches over to his plate with her fork. It is better than hers. 

“I thought this place had a reputation.” She hears George yell. Everyone goes silent. “I don’t have time to be waiting around here all afternoon for you to decide when I should be finished. Do you even know who I am?” He yells, the quaking server looks up at him. 

The answer, of course, is that he is nobody. Not really, not in a city of politicians and old money. He’s self-made and she’d liked that, at first, until discovering that self-made was reliant on a very hearty loan from his family. He was a fantastic real-estate agent, finding her the gorgeous apartment in Georgetown. Other than that, his talents in pretty much all other areas were highly replaceable. It seemed to Helen that only highly replaceable people yell at servers. 

George stalks back to the table clutching the bill. 

“You’re eating my food.” He points out.

“Well, you won’t be finishing it and it would be a shame for it to go to waste.”

“Excuse me?”

“George, it’s been great, really. I’ve loved going dress shopping and I’ve loved using my skills to envision the most fantastic wedding. I had a blast on your friend…what’s his name, Harold’s, yacht.”

“Mark? What does he have to do with-“

She puts her hand up, the engagement ring hand. She takes another moment to admire it and decides that she’s being silly, of course this one looks good on her. “We’re finished.”

“With brunch?”

“Yes, well, you are. I’m not. However I mean this.” She gestures between them. “My mother always did teach me that people who are rude to servers are just rude people who have managed to trick you. I don’t like being tricked.”

“Helen-“

“I’m afraid I’ve made up my mind.”

He puffs his chest out as she takes another bite of her omelet. It’s not bad, and the cheese in it is divine but really, his was better. 

“Then I’d like the ring back.”

Helen laughs and he looks taken aback, his chest deflating as he looks around self-consciously. 

“Don’t you think that’s a bit dramatic?” Helen asks him. “Besides, I picked this one out. It was a gift and asking for a gift back seems rather tasteless.”  
He throws his napkin down on the table and gets up. 

“I hope you know what you’re doing.” He says, smoothing his blazer. It’s a boring color. She hates it. She hates him, suddenly, and his lack of any air of risk. 

“I always do.” She tells him, leaning back in her chair as he stalks out of the restaurant. 

She pulls his plate so that it’s next to hers and takes out her phone, opening Snapchat. She remembers when the app was used primarily for purposes much more taboo than puppy filters and cringes. She takes a picture of her meals and sends it with the caption “Some of the countries that you and your merry band of men are visiting are currently experiencing political unrest and other dangerous conditions. Listen to NPR once and awhile, you heathen.” 

She scrolls through her feed, seeing mountains, long twisting roads, and tourist traps. There is a rather endearing picture of a tiny girl dancing at the Full Moon festival, one of a sharply good-looking man with impressive hair doing a handstand on a mountaintop, and another of her brother, sitting meditatively on top of his car. 

“I’ve always had trouble deciding between menu items here, also.” Someone says, pulling her attention away from her phone. As if summoned by some sort of mutual sibling worry tactic, Declan Lynch is standing in front of her table. 

His blazer is dark, midnight blue stitched with just a hint of metallic. It’s gauche and Helen loves it. With his neat hair it looks like a risk, not a faux pas. The New American Politician. 

“Declan, what a pleasant surprise.”

“Likewise.”

“Would you care to join me?”

“Afraid I can’t, I’m here with my fiancée.”

“How is she?” 

“Well. We’d love for you and Grant to join us sometime. Maybe drinks some night?”

“George and I’m afraid he won’t be accompanying me anywhere.”

Declan smiles and nods. “Even better, we never liked him much anyway.”

“Well, I’ll let you get back to Ainsley.”

His lips quirk up. “Ashley.”

She tisks herself. “Apologies. If you’ll excuse me, I have a waitress to over tip.”

 

“Who was that?” Ashley asks, looking at Declan over her menu.

“Helen Gansey. You’ve met her brother.”

“I’ve met her, at the country club two years ago.”

Declan hums in agreement. 

Seeing Helen was a pleasant surprise. She looked regal, even in front of two plates of breakfast, maybe more so because of it. His subconscious slaps him back to reality. Coincidently, his aggressive subconscious has a familiar glare and snarl, reminding him that any Gansey is hands off. 

Not that Helen Gansey would let anyone handle her.

“Would you be up for sharing?” Declan asks, trying not to grimace at the double meaning.

“What?”

“Well, too many things look good. We could get two things and have half of each.” He gives her his best smile, a bit conspiratorial.

Ashley blinks at him. “I’m getting a salad.”

“Good God woman, it’s brunch.”

She shrugs. “Do you want me to look good in our wedding photos or not?”

“You always look good.”

She smiles and the room glows with her. 

Ashley has given him something he’s never really had before. She loves him, not because of obligation or skill or worth. She makes him feel like he’s enough.   
“You’re right though. No one really needs more than one option anyway.” He picks her hand up and kisses it. 

Back at their apartment, Declan takes his blazer off as Ashley takes a call in the bedroom. He opens the paper, skimming for anything relevant before getting bored and pulling out his phone. Matthew has tried to start a new group text. 

"I give this group exactly two hours." He text.

"A little faith. It’s just the easiest way to talk with both of you." Matthew responds seconds later. Declan shakes his head. 

He makes his way over to the bedroom but stops short of pushing the door open further. 

“I’ll go this weekend. I’ve already looked everywhere in DC, office, apartment, even banks.” There’s a pause. “I mean, if I were hiding something, that’s where I’d hide it. In the middle of nowhere with the scariest one.”

His heart starts to pound in his ears. He’s jumping to conclusions. He’s just too used to things blowing up that he’s already supplying an explanation.

“If it isn’t there then maybe you’re right. Maybe he never had it and they’re out looking for it.”

He furrows his brows. 

Ashley snorts, “Co-dependent is an understatement.” She pauses as the other person speaks. “I’m narrowing down options, that’s all I can do right now. It’s not in DC. Worst-case scenario we get a little messy. We make a visit to that college or go collect them from whatever country they’re in now. Declan’s the hard one, he’s the easy one, too many connections.”

He staggers back a step before collecting himself. He’s used to this. He’s used to this. He repeats it like a mantra. He picks his phone back up and gets back into the doomed group message. 

"Not a drill: we need to talk Sunday. Plans need to be made. Matthew, do not go anywhere with anyone and be on guard. Ronan, if you can convince Adam to go someplace, go. Take a trip somewhere. Don’t tell anyone where, not even me." 

He gets into his laptop and changes the password. 

His father taught him how to deal with his messes. How to shoot, how to fight, how to cover his tracks. Declan had assumed that part of his life was behind him. Apparently, he’d just been ignoring it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A psychic gets a phone call from a listless woman and a farmer gets a visit from a worried man.

Helen hadn’t been aware how much of her time she had been occupying with planning her own wedding. Planning had been a part-time career of hers in the past, and she’d enjoyed it, spending her days surrounded by flowers, lace, and gold. Now though, her day looms ahead, too long and too empty.

The downtime between whatever her old interest had been and discovering what her new interest will be was always the hardest part. Her and Richard had always been avid hobbyists, throwing themselves completely into whatever struck a cord with them. Event planning for Helen, dead kings for Richard. 

Maybe it was a familial trait. Her mother developed an obsession with politics only a few years before Helen had been born. Her father was devoted to his cars. 

Still in bed, Helen snapped open the newspaper and started reading, the crossword being her end-game. She popped a berry into her mouth from the plate next to her, but her heart wasn’t in it. She felt listless, adrift in a sea of possibilities where none looked very appealing. She needed guidance. A push in the right direction. 

She grabbed for her phone and dialed before she could talk herself out of it. 

As the phone on the other end picked up, there was a clamor for it that Helen could hear. The passing around from person to person as they settled on whose call it was with a resounding, “It’s mine” coming out more loudly than Helen had expected. 

“Darling, how are you?” The voice on the other end purred into Helen’s ear. 

“Do you always answer the phone that way or just when I call?”

Orla laughs, a breathy full-throated sound, “Only for you.”

“Sure.”

“How are you?”

“You tell me.”

Orla sighs, “Bored.”

Helen gets up and walks around her room, Orla’s voice, the feel of silk dragging across her thighs as her nightgown moves with her, it all makes her feel powerful, beautiful. 

“You’re almost there, almost to a new location.” Orla tells her. “So close to it.” The way she says it, her voice slow and the accent honeyed, sounds vaguely pornographic.

“And what is it?”

“A mystery.” She pauses for a beat. “Actually, it’s dangerous. You’re going to need to be careful.”

“Oh?” Helen stops her slow walk around the room. She hadn’t been expecting that. She’d been expecting, maybe, that Orla would tell her it was time to take a trip, go abroad. Maybe that it was time to try out a new career or learn to surf. 

“Ok wait, let me get my barring. This is bigger than I expected from you.”

“Thanks.” She says sarcastically. 

Orla snickers. “Just talk to me for a second.”

“Um, let’s see. I’m looking outside and the cherry blossoms that everyone loses their damn minds over are starting to bloom. People are leaving for work in dark suits. People here never seem to realize that lighter clothing is an option.”

“There is a new man.”

Helen stops talking.

“He’s coming up by your mother, it appears. He’s no good.”

“Ok.”

“And the mystery, he has something to do with it.” She pauses again and when she speaks again she sounds concerned. She’s being careful to choose the right words. “Helen, I’m seeing other people getting pulled into this. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Not right now. Not yet.”

“You need to take care of this, when it starts.”

“Orla, you’re worrying me.”

“My cousin is coming up.” She explains. 

Helen rests her forehead on the cool glass of the window. “So Richard-“

“Could get pulled in, him and Blue.”

“I don’t know what this is about, honestly, Orla.”

“You will. It’s starting soon.”

“I will keep you informed.”

She can hear Orla smile. “I know.”

As Helen hangs up she thinks about how Paris looks in the spring. All muted tones and rainy mornings spent in cafes. She lets her mind drift there for a minute, occupying herself with thoughts of champagne filled afternoons in a little flat over a bookstore, the window open to the cool misty rain, Orla in bed, the sheets-

Her phone rings and Helen frowns at it. 

“Mother, it’s early.”

“It’s eleven.”

“On a Sunday.”

“What do you have planned this week?”

“I was thinking of taking a trip.”

“Ridiculous, you have too much going on for a trip. You need to get your engagement party set and then there is dress shopping.”

Oh, oops.

“I don’t think that will be an issue.”

“I was informed today that I need to have more of a social media presence.”

“MySpace is dead. Facebook is for old people. Snapchat was for nudes and now it’s for filters. Twitter is for making fun on the president.”

“Nudes?”

“Never mind.”

“I was hoping that you could help me with this. You took some marketing courses, isn’t this in your wheel house?”

Helen thinks it over for a minute. “Sure.”

“Do you have any experience?”

She rolls her eyes. “Would you like my resume? Should I write you a cover letter?”

“We can always give it a test run I suppose.”

“The faith you have in me is touching.”

“Honey, you know the saying, ‘a jack of all trades, a master of none.’”

“That’s not the whole quote. ‘Jack of all trades, a master of none, is better than a master of one.” 

“I don’t think that’s right, dear.”

“Do you need me to come in to the office for this?”

“That would be best.”

“Tomorrow, noon.”

“Tomorrow, eight a.m. Love you.” Her mother makes a kiss noise into the phone before hanging up.

 

 

“Ok, what the fuck is going on?” Ronan asks as soon as the three of them get back to the Barns. 

Declan looks around, though cleaner than one would expect, the house is cluttered. In the kitchen, the table is covered in labels, books, and car magazines. There is a nice espresso machine on the counter and Declan is willing to bet money that Ronan didn’t purchase it himself. Three pairs of rain boots sit by the door, one with a yellow duck pattern on them. 

“Ashley’s gone.”

“You freaked out because your fiancée broke up with you?” He crosses his arms and leans against his sink. Matthew punches him in the arm. 

“Be nice. I’m sorry, Declan. That blows.”

“I overheard a conversation she was having. It would appear that she’s been working with someone connected to our father.”

Ronan swears and Matthew hums, still getting used to being included in these discussions. He’s handled it all as well as could be expected. He had a small existential crisis, but what teenager doesn’t nowadays? After he got over that, he had a tense discussion with the both of them, insisting that he be included from now on. The next time Declan saw him out of his uniform, he was wearing a shirt that had “Livin’ the Dream” emblazoned across the front. Matthew had laughed until he cried at the look of abject horror on Declan’s face. He had sent a picture to Ronan, also.

“So she was a spy?” Matthew asks. 

“Seems that way.”

“What does she want?” Ronan asks. “I thought this was all over.”

“I did too.” Declan admits. “Should have known better. From what I could gather, whoever she’s working for-“

“Or with.” Matthew points out. “She doesn’t have to be working for anyone.”

Ronan snorts out a laugh. 

“Whoever she was talking to seems to think that we still have something hidden.”

“Greywaren?” Ronan asks.

Declan shakes his head. “Maybe. Or an artifact he promised someone, something big enough to warrant this level of commitment.”

“Anyone who’d put up with dating you for more than a few months must really need to find it.” Ronan says with a smile. 

“Can you take this seriously?”

“I am, doesn’t mean I can’t also make a joke.”

“So, she threatened us?” Matthew asks, leading the conversation back on track.

“She mentioned some concerning things, yes. Mentioned visiting a college, so either you or Adam. Mentioned coming here.”

Ronan puts his wrist to his mouth and begins to gnaw on his bracelets. Declan keeps her observation about Ronan to himself. That he has so many people that they could chose to pick off. That he’s the easiest Lynch to target. 

“I told Adam to be careful. I offered to come up there for a bit, stay in his shitty grad student hovel.”

“What’d he say?” Declan asks.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

Declan rolls his eyes. “You two could come to DC for a bit. I could get him an internship this summer. Maybe if we’re all in the same place we’ll –“

“Declan, I have a business and a fucking kid. Also, as far as backup goes, there’s also a hitman in town who happens to be in my social circle.”

Matthew runs a hand through his curls. “I was going to do an internship this summer.”

Declan and Ronan both spin, facing him at the same time.

“Well, not so much an internship as a volunteer thing. In Costa Rica. I’ve been thinking and I kind of want to help kids. Costa Rica has this cool program where you work with kids and teach them skills and stuff.”

“You want to be a teacher?” Declan asks, trying to keep the judgment out of his voice.

“Not really. I want to maybe open something here some day. A place for kids who need somewhere to go. Who need help.” He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, avoiding everyone's eyes. “I mean, I have the trust and I need experience if I’m going to do this.”

Declan looks at Ronan, who is quiet, eyes on the floor. Ronan starts nodding before putting a hand on Matthew’s head and messing up his hair. 

“I think that’s a great idea.” Declan says. 

“So, we need this taken care of before you run off to save the world.” Ronan says. 

“I think I know most of what Ashley thinks she has.” Declan says, wandering over to the table and picking up magazines. Moving things around just to have something to do with his hands. “I think her next move is to come here and look around. She already checked everything in my name.”

“So open more in your name.” Matthew suggests. “Buy some small stuff, get more safe deposit boxes.”

“An offshore account.” Ronan adds, getting excited about the idea.

“That might slow her down while I try to figure out who she works for.”

“With.” Matthew corrects again.

Declan looks at the labels on the table. “What the ever loving fuck?” He asks, picking one up and holding it up to his brother.

Ronan raises an eyebrow. Challenging him. 

It’s a minimalist label for artisanal cheese.

“I thought I could, you know,” Ronan makes a violent gesture with his hands. “Kill them, sell them at least. How the fuck can I sell them when I know that it’s a one way ticket to the slaughterhouse?”

Declan’s lip twitches upwards.

“Have you seen them, asshole?” Ronan asks. “Some of them are those fuzzy ass ones. They watch you with those big sad eyes.”

“So, cheese?”

“And like, soap and lotion and shit.” He adds, standing as menacingly as possible while discussing a fucking artisanal cheese farm. 

“Was the tagline necessary?”

Ronan laughs, throwing his head back.

“In Horrea” The Barns, the brand name announces in Latin, with the small marketing line underneath proclaiming, “The stuff of dreams.”


	3. Chapter 3

She’s already late. 

Not that it’s her fault, not really. Her driver isn’t a risk-taker. He won’t take the yellow lights or switch lanes or go over the speed limit, even when the traffic isn’t bumper to bumper. Helen would climb up into the driver’s seat and take over if her pencil skirt would allow it. She can think of better ways to get to work, unfortunately, arriving in a helicopter is seen as a desperate cry for attention in most places. 

She still has time to change her mind, book a flight on her phone, make a quick stop at Fox Way, and spend the spring in Paris. She pulls her sunglasses off and pinches the bridge of her nose. 

“Sir, since we’re going to be late anyway, I might as well come bearing gifts.”

 

Helen walks briskly into her mother’s office as interns move aside to let her pass. 

“Good Morning, Mother.” Helen says, sitting a coffee on her desk. Mrs. Gansey doesn’t look up from her papers. 

“Morning, Dear.”

“Does this have sugar in it?” Her assistant, Joyce, asks, pursing her lips and looking at the coffee like it might go off at any moment. 

“Skinny no-whip vanilla cap.” Helen says, sipping her own drink. 

“She’s not doing sugar this month.”

“Good thing Skinny drinks use sugar-free syrup.” 

Joyce sighs. “Let me show you to your desk.”

There is a table set up in the next room, full of computers and an office chair in front of each one. 

“Really?’ Helen asks. Joyce smirks as Helen sits her bag down and settles in to an end seat. 

“Make yourself at home.” She says, walking away with a spring in her step. 

Helen flips open the computer and logs into her mother’s social media accounts, starting with Twitter. It’s atrocious, a mess of too formal tweets that have no soul. Helen jots down some ideas that highlight her mother’s charity work and soon loses herself in her tasks. 

 

By the time lunch rolls around, Helen has ideas for how to proceed with each account. She stretches, enjoying the whirring in her brain at the new project. She remembers Orla’s prediction, a mystery, and gets a twinge of excitement. It’s probably wrong to get excited about something that may be dangerous, but all of the most exciting things in life are dangerous. 

“I’m getting lunch, do you want me to bring you anything?” Helen asks her mother on the way out. The coffee she brought in still sits on the edge of her mother’s desk, untouched. 

“My interns will bring me something, thank you.” She replies, glancing up at her daughter. “How bad is it?”

“They were bad but I think we can fix them.” She reports. Her mother nods and returns to her work. 

 

Helen’s usual pace is a bit faster than the rest of the world’s but today she makes herself slow down and enjoy the afternoon. She gets in line at the café, purchasing a salad and a newspaper, before finding a seat outside. The woman at the table next to her has the same salad and Helen wonders briefly if she'd trade her strawberries for Helen's extra pecans. She flips open the paper, content enough with her salad to remain silent. 

 

Family of Missing DC Resident Offer Reward For Information  
Ashley Spencer of DC, was reported missing yesterday evening by her parents, William and Mary Spencer. They alerted police after their daughter failed to arrive to her father’s birthday celebration Sunday afternoon. Sources claim that the concerned parents spoke with Ms. Spencer’s Fiancé, only to find that the couple had recently argued.  
“Typically, we would wait a few days before calling this a missing person’s case.” Detective Reynolds tells us. “However, none of her bank accounts have been touched and with the recent rise in missing persons cases we decided to act quickly.”  
“We just want her home safe.” Says, Mrs. Spencer. “If you know anything about where she may be, please help us bring her home.”  
Ashley Spencer’s fiancé, Mr. Declan Lynch, is a political consultant. He has refused to comment on this story but did add to the reward fund. 

 

A picture of Ashley stares back at Helen. Suddenly, the air outside is too warm, her heart beats heavy in her chest. She just saw them a few days ago. She grabs her bag, lunch forgotten, and makes a few well-placed phone calls. It takes three to find Declan and Ashley’s address. It takes another fifteen to coax the manager into giving away Declan’s apartment number. 

Helen checks her reflection in the mirrored doors of the elevator. Of course, she’s only going to check on a family friend. Of course, she’s only going to get details on what’s happening. Of course, she looks amazing. She runs a hand over her hair, newspaper tucked into her bag. 

News that something happened to a peer always brings about a sense of mortality. Ashley was her age, maybe a year younger even. She was from a nice family, lived in a safe neighborhood. She had none of the red flags that would tend to make news of this nature less shocking to hear. At least, not that Helen had known about. Her phone buzzes in her bag but she ignores it. 

At Declan’s door she pauses, pulling out the paper and scanning the article again. She prides herself on being a decent judge of character. Despite the damning double claims of an argument and an untouched bank account, she had no reason to believe that Declan is capable of murdering his fiancée. She has no reason to believe he is capable of murdering anyone, actually. Still, she hesitates to knock on his door. 

An elderly woman walking a poodle stops at the door across the hall and smiles tightly at Helen. 

“I don’t think he’s home.” The lady says. “He left the other morning and I haven’t seen him today.” 

“Oh.”

“And between you and me, I wouldn’t socialize with him.”

“No?”

The woman looks around. “The night before she was reported missing, they had a terrible fight.”

Helen closes the paper and looks at Declan’s door. 

“She was screaming, he was yelling, things were breaking.”

“What were they screaming about?”

“I couldn’t make it out.” She says, conspiratorially, scooping up her toy poodle. 

The door opens wide to reveal Declan, smiling at the sight of his suspicious neighbor. “Mrs. Lowry, how are you?” He asks.

“Fine. Any news about your fiancée, Mr. Lynch?”

His face drops just a bit but not as much as one would expect in such a circumstance. “Not yet but the Spencer’s and I are hopeful.”

Mrs. Lowry nods, getting her key out, prepared for a quick exit.

“How’s Julep’s arthritis?” He asks.

“Oh, better now that she’s on her new medications.” Mrs. Lowry responds, sounding a bit warmer towards him. He was a pro and Helen was always appreciative of a pro.

“I’ll let you get on with your day.” He tells her. “And I’ll be sure to let you know if I hear anything about Ashley.”

“Please do, dear.” She says, waving to them as she closes the door behind her.

The hall suddenly seems too quiet as he turns his attention to Helen. She takes a moment to appreciate his more casual appearance, nice dark jeans and a soft looking Henley that is doing just fantastic things for the arms he has crossed across his chest now as he smiles at her. 

“What do I owe this privilege to?” He asks, letting himself take a look at her. Her dark hair pushed behind her shoulders, the collarbone above the silk blouse and the skirt that shows enough leg for it to be a very tempting distraction from his day. 

She presses the newspaper into his chest while pushing him aside and making her way into his apartment. Helen hears the door close as she scans his home. A bit too much glass and black marble for her taste but the view alone had to cost a fortune. 

“I’m sorry.” She says, turning to face him. 

“Thank you.” In the light now, she can see dark circles around his eyes and a bit more stubble than she’d ever seen on him. She’d always just assumed that nature had made him in a Ken Doll image and he never looked anything less than photo-ready. Now though, he looked soft and sleepy and it made her want to pull him down into bed and sleep away the afternoon. 

Which, she tells herself, is not a productive train of thought. 

“What happened?” She asks.

“You heard Mrs. Lowry.” There is a tightness in his jaw at that. 

“I don’t know Mrs. Lowry.”

“You don’t know me.” He says it lightly but it still sounds like an accusation. 

Helen waves her hand. “Nonsense.” She walks over towards him and sits at a barstool. “Now, what happened?”

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. 

“How much do you know about my father?”

“Not much.” Other than how he had died and how he was discovered, she thinks.

“He was involved with some undesirable people. He would find things for them, artifacts mainly.” He says, choosing his words carefully. “Since his death, some of those people have popped up now and then.”

“Why?”

“Maybe he didn’t fulfill a deal or maybe he owed money.” He waves his hand as if it’s unimportant. “I overheard a conversation Ashley was having and it became clear that she is working with someone who was involved with my father’s business.”

“In what way?”

He walks around the bar and starts to make a drink. Yes, it’s only one in the afternoon. Yes, he has company. But God, does he need this. Ashley hadn’t known much about his father, at least, he hadn’t delved into it with her. And of course there were people who knew about it but telling Helen seemed too much like clashing his two worlds together. He preferred to keep them separate. He raises a glass to her in question but she shakes her head. 

“I heard her discussing her progress in attempting to discover where I may have stashed artifacts. She knew things…” He let himself trail off and took a drink. It burned in a way that was wholly satisfying. “She had been spying on me for years.”

“Declan,” Helen began softly, a look of genuine pity on her pretty face. He’d take pity over fear or accusation. It fit his agenda better. 

“So, I rushed into things. I confronted her and she began yelling immediately, started throwing things, began yelling horrible accusations and I realized that this was her out. Some spies have cyanide pills, she was going to frame me for something.”

He watches as Helen closes her eyes and swallows, trying to take it all in. His mind races back to the fight, to the things Ashley yelled about him hurting her, controlling her, all meant for neighbors like dear, Mrs. Lowry to overhear. 

“Where did she go?” Helen asks.

“I have no idea. I should have been calmer, given myself time to do a little spying back.” His phone rings and he sees that it’s the politician he’s currently working for. “Excuse me,” He says, headed into his office. 

Alone, Helen gets up and walks the room. Spies and a disappearance, artifacts and a shadow organization. This has to be what Orla had warned her about, right? 

She makes her way over to the bookshelf and runs her finger along the spines, stopping on one with gold embossed lettering. She pulls it out and her brows furrow. Leafing through it, she reads the chapters surrounding Arthur, then Llewellyn, until she flips to the heavily notated section that she recognizes. She’d know this information in her sleep, seeped into her brain subconsciously from years of white-noise level info dumps. She can see locations highlighted, notes made about ley lines next to them. She sees the highlighted name, Glendower. 

Declan comes back into the room to find a distressed looking Helen with a book in her hand. 

“So, Declan,” She asks. “What do you know about Welsh Kings?”

“What?”

She turns the book towards him and he moves closer, taking it from her and scanning the notes himself.

“Declan, there are only two reasons someone would look this much into Glendower. Either they believe they can find him or they want to have a way in with the kind of crazy people who do.”

Declan thinks about the parts of Ashley’s conversation that he didn’t understand, about collecting someone from a different country, about someone looking for the artifact. He curses before immediately clearing his throat.

“I’m sure it was for a class or-“

“Do not bullshit me, Lynch.” Helen says, poking at him with the book. “What the hell does she want with Richard?”

“I think she is under the impression that he is off looking for the artifact she wants.”

Declan picks his drink back up from where he’d left it, willing himself to get his shit together. If he can calm her down, he can figure out how to deal with this new information. As a rule, he hates surprises. Surprises leave no time to fix his face or project an air of casual-

Helen grabs the glass out of his hand and downs it, yanking him out of his thoughts. He blinks at her and she stares at him with a worried look on her face. 

“He’s going to be fine.” He tells her, trying to figure out if casual contact is acceptable. Is she a touch person? Should he put his hand on her arm or shoulder?

“We need to find Ashley.”

“We?” He clarifies, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ve never been the kind of person to leave something up to anyone else.” She tells him.

He smiles and it looks genuine and foreign on his face, Helen thinks. It sends a little delighted shock through her. 

“I’ll be in touch.” She says, stuffing the book into her bag and making a beeline for the door before she has time to get any more little shocks at inappropriate times and with inappropriate people. 

“What?” He follows after her a few steps but she isn’t turning back. “Let’s go get drinks, talk strategy. We need a plan.”

She turns at the door, just enough for him to see her grin. “Exactly. I’ll be in touch.”

And she’s gone.

And the apartment is empty.

And too quiet.

Declan turns on some music, hoping to fill the silence. He pours himself another drink, a bit heavier this time around. 

If Ashley thinks Gansey has the artifact would she really traipse all over the world to find him or would she wait for him to sit still for a while? Was Ashley working for someone during their whole relationship? Had he been a pawn from the beginning? An easy target, no close friends, no steady girlfriends, just a rotating door of convenience where nothing could hurt him. 

Is it possible for someone to love him for himself, and not what he could do for them? 

He takes a deep drink, chasing the thought in hopes of killing it with alcohol. 

Declan flips through the contacts in his phone, tonight isn’t a night to spend alone with his thoughts and it has been a very long time since that revolving door of his has spun around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments make me write faster  
> (and just make me a happier person tbh)


	4. Chapter 4

Declan wakes up as his date from the previous night is gathering her things.

“Morning.” He stretches, watching her as she bends to put her shoes on.

“Hey.” She says, smiling at him. “Sorry I have to run, work.” 

“No time for breakfast?” She looks him over, slowly, like she’s considering it. “I make amazing waffles.”

“Rain check?”

“Absolutely.” He gets out of bed, checking his phone quickly before walking her to the door. 

“Text me later?” She asks, kissing him on the cheek and placing a well-manicured hand on his bare chest.

“Of course.”

With the door closed, he lets himself slump against it. 

It’s an easy habit to fall back into. He’s picked a new girl each night but this last one…

She looked so much like Ashley. 

She even wore her perfume. 

He turns on some music and gets back into bed, pretending, just until his alarm goes off, that the scent on the pillow next to him is from his fiancée.

 

Somehow, she’s awake. Somehow, she’s managed to look presentable and get herself in this elevator. 

She’d been up entirely too long, diving down a new rabbit hole. After leaving Declan’s, she had made her way to the bookstore and stocked up. Books on private investigators, spying, and hacking had shared her bed last night as she skimmed through them and began making surface notes on the topics. 

The elevator opens and just like that, Helen's on the ground.

Really, this makes much more sense than her ability to stay upright had.

“I am so incredibly sorry.” Someone says, holding out a hand for her to take.

Helen glares up at the man who just knocked her to the ground. Sharply dressed, nice hair and a smile that could do a better job of knocking her on her ass than the man it’s attached to.

She takes his hand and brushes her clothes off.

“Please, let me buy you a coffee or dinner or something.”

She lets out a surprised little laugh. “Smooth.”

His grin is all-American. Some kind of Ryan Seacrest, Chris Evans vibe is making her think of him at a fourth of July party, drinking a beer next to her father as he grills superfluous burgers and the catering takes care of the heavy lifting. 

Quick as a flash though, her mind goes to darker places, the smell of smoke from fireworks, hiding in the shadows of the garage as some faceless man pins her against one of the many cars. 

“A coffee at least.” He says.

“I need to get to work.” Helen responds. “I’m fine, really.”

He nods and she walks towards her mother’s office. 

“Helen.” Her mother says, spotting her. She waves her over and Helen feels her stomach fall. 

She takes her glasses off and sits them on her desk, starring holes into Helen.

“I gave you a job, a test run at that.”

“You did and I came in and I have notes for all kinds of campaigns we can implement.” 

“And you went to lunch and never came back.”

“Did you hear that Ashley Spencer is missing?” She asks her mother, trying hard not to back down and apologize like normal. 

“Why do I know that name?”

“Declan Lynch’s fiancée.”

She makes an “ah” face but no noise escapes. “Any foul play expected?”

“I believe they think she’s been kidnapped. Declan seems to think-“

“You spoke to Declan?”

“That’s where I was, at Declan’s, making sure he was alright.”

“Jesus, Helen how stupid.”

She recoils as if she’s been slapped. She mentally scoffs at her own reaction. Nothing new to see here.

“A missing girl and the first thing you think to do is go flirt with her fiancé?”

“First of all-“

“Did it ever occur to you that he could have had something to do with her disappearance?”

“No.” She raises her chin just a fraction of an inch.

Her mother rolls her eyes. “And what did George think of you spending time in another man’s apartment?” She says it like a trump card, as if she’d never met her daughter, as if she thought her daughter would let someone tell her what she could and could not do. 

Ring or not.

“Nothing. I broke it off.”

Her mother pinches the bridge of her nose. 

“Joyce.” She yells just seconds before her assistant appears at the desk. “The Ashley Spencer thing.”

“Yes? Would you like to make a statement?”

“No. Is there anyway that this can come back on us?”

“What? Helen asks.

“Is Declan Lynch a suspect?”

“I can check.” Joyce says, writing it down.

“He isn’t.” Helen says.

“If he’s being implicated I may need to make a clear statement that though our families have connections-“

“Can you stop being like this for two seconds and have some goddamn compassion?” Helen snaps. 

Someone clears their throat behind her and she turns to see the man from the elevator standing behind her, a carrier of coffee in hand. 

“Nick, hello.” Her mother says to him. “This is my daughter, Helen.”

“We’ve met, actually.” Helen says, making him smile again. “New intern?”

“Campaign consultant.” He sits the coffee down on her mother’s desk. 

There’s a scratch in the back of her brain as he moves to look at something over her mother’s shoulder. She brushes it off and makes her way to her own desk.  
She tries to get her mind to settle down and focus as she jams her crystal studded earbuds into her ears and does a cursory check of the social media accounts. 

A coffee cup appears next to her. Her name on the side. 

“I thought my stance on coffee apologies was clear.” She says, only bothering to remove one earbud as she raises an eyebrow at him.

“Your mother gave me your order with hers this morning. That’s where I was headed when we met.”

Helen thinks “met” is not quite the word she would have chosen. “Well, thank you.”

“Nick.”

“Right, Nick.” She says. He knocks twice on the desk before walking away. 

And it clicks. 

Helen grabs her phone and calls.

It takes a minute for him to pick up. “Yes?”

“Do you believe in psychics?”

“Who is this?” Declan asks, suspicious.

“Helen. Do you?”

“I’ve seen stranger, like, for instance, how people can find unlisted phone numbers and just call people up at nine in the morning.”

“I got it yesterday when I also found your address and apartment number within the span of a half hour." She rolls her eyes, not that he can see it.

“If you wanted my number, all you had to do was ask.” His voice sounds gravely, like maybe she woke him up. 

“One of the psychics at Fox Way, you know it?”

“I know of it.”

“She told me I’d be getting involved in a mystery and that it would be dangerous. She also told me that there would be a new man involved, a man connected to my mother. She said he was part of it.”

“Congrats.”

“No, listen, he’s not connected to us, he’s part of whatever Ashley was into.”

“Do you know who she’s talking about?”

“I think he just started today. Consultant, Nick something.”

“Never heard of him.” 

She watches Nick pull out his phone and note something her mother is talking about. 

“Helen, this is our chance.”

“What?”

“If your psychic is right then this guy could play right into our hands. I blew it by showing my cards to Ashley too soon. You need to get close to this guy and try to figure out what’s going on.”

“We’re assuming a lot here.”

“You’re the one telling me that a psychic prophesized this.”

“Maybe you’re more Nick’s type.”

Declan snorts, it’s probably the least dignified thing she’s even heard of him doing.

“It’s worth a shot.” He says.

And she agrees. Plus, there are worse things in this world than a free meal with an attractive man.

 

“They have a whole roast duck for two.” Helen points out.

Nick laughs and she isn’t sure why. 

“I’ve heard fantastic things about crispy chicken.” He says. 

“So, is this all really because you feel bad for knocking me on my ass this morning?”

He smiles. “No.”

“Then I won’t order the most expensive thing, then. Good to know.”

“You’re mother told me you had a feisty sense of humor.”

Her mother does not understand her sense of humor. She pretends to be texting as she sets up her phone to record. Helen tucks it safely back under the table. 

She sees plates pass by that look beautiful. And small. 

They order and an uncomfortable moment passes by before she can think of anything to ask.

“So, Nick, where did you go to school?”

“Yale.” He smiles. “My dad was a Harvard man so I kind of rebelled.”

Yep, that’s Helen’s idea of rebellion, all right. Who wants an outlaw or a pirate when you could have an Ivy League man?

“Brothers or sisters?”

And so it went, with Helen asking questions that made her sound invested while prying him for connections. She just needed one school, one family name, to cross with Ashley Spencer and they’d have a lead. Helen tries to remember her charms. She laughs when he says something he believes to be funny. She makes sure that when she tastes his food, offered from his fork, that she pulls her lips slowly off of the utensil, eyes closed. 

She glances past Nick as he talks about his summers learning to sail with his father, silently begging any patron for a quick death. She can't wait for this to be over. Can't wait to direct this conversation with Declan before heading home to research which techniques work best for interrogation. 

And speaking of, Declan walks past the restaurant, model worthy blonde on his arm. It jolts her back to the conversation. 

"Once I got the hang of it, I really found that my true love was in teaching kids without strong father figures how to sail. Just the look on their faces when they caught on, when they did it for themselves the first time. Best feeling in the world."

"I'll be right back." She says, slipping out of the booth with her phone. In the bathroom she breathes a sigh of relief. No one is that nice. No one. 

She texts, "Word on the block is that the fiancé of a missing woman is out and about with a new lady friend."

She waits but he doesn't text back.

"You're being sloppy." She sends, shoving her phone back into her bag. 

Nick smiles and stands up when she comes back to the table. She touches his arm, smiling back.

They split dessert, and he walks her to her car. 

“Could I take you out again some time?” He asks.

“Isn’t that a conflict of interest? You are working for my mother, aren’t you?”

“To be fair, I asked you to dinner before I knew who you were.”

Liar.

She searches him for tells, clocking how he’s standing, what his face is doing. Filing it away for future use. 

“Maybe.” She says, ducking into the backseat before turning off the recording as the driver pulls away. 

Declan has text her a time and the name of a bar. 

Off The Record, 9. 

She smiles and leans her head back against the seat. 

 

“So, tell me about it.” 

“He took me to The Source.” She makes a dismissive face and he laughs. “Whatever he’s heard about me is wrong.”

“Based on his dinner choice?”

“I take all indulgences very seriously.” She doesn’t mean that to sound as flirtatious as it had but it’s out of her mouth and Declan’s eye seem to get just a bit darker. Too late now. 

“Did he give anything away, anything he seemed to know about you?”

“Anything that may have seemed that way was prefaced with a ‘your mother tells me.’” 

Declan holds up two fingers to the bartender, who nods. 

“I recorded the conversation. I tried to focus on questions that would help us figure out where him and Ashley connect.”

“You recorded it?”

“I went to dinner with a strange man who may be working for dangerous people. Of course I recorded our conversation.”

Declan’s impressed. He smiles and leans forward just a bit, before he can think otherwise. She preens and moves back in her seat. Further from him. 

“Exeter, Yale, a vegan sister who went to Sarah Lawrence. His parents were born and raised in New Hampshire. His father was in politics, retired now. His mother was part of the DAR.” 

If only all dates went like the rehashed version. Quick and to the point. Family and grooming was only the icing on the cake but men spent so much time talking about it. Who cares about the icing if you don’t want to eat the cake?

“On top of that.” Helen adds, “He seems to be a fusion of my last two serious relationships.”

“How so?”

“The breeding of George with the Golden Retriever qualities of Anthony.”

“Is that relevant?” He asks it in a way that sounds curious, not condescending.

“I think so. I think if they are sending people for us to get close to, they would have some idea of what we’d go for.”

Declan thinks about Ashley. When he’d met her she set herself apart immediately. She hadn’t giggled at his jokes if they weren’t funny, she wouldn’t let him get her in bed until they were exclusive, she had the fun, ditzy personality of the girls he usually dated one minute and then could turn around and spar with him about foreign trade agreements. 

“You’re right.” He says, running a hand over his face. “Jesus.”

“He takes me to a place that’s nice but not my style. He looks like-“

“Like he plays youth sports with disenfranchised children and rallies for the young republicans?”

Helen laughs, throwing her head back. He takes a long, self-indulgent look at her throat. He’s nothing if not an opportunist, after all. 

“So, what next?” She asks, leaning in conspiratorially.

“I think you should date him.”

She blinks a few times before straightening back up and crossing her arms. 

“You think I should date him.”

“I do.”

“Well, good for you, Declan Lynch.” She swallows the rest of her drink and grabs her bag off the bar. She pulls out several bills and he puts his hand over hers.

“My treat.”

She snarls at him. “I’m a bit sick of men trying to buy my affection tonight. I’ve got it.”

He takes his hand back and follows her out a few paces behind. 

“Helen, stop.”

She spins once they’ve cleared the door. She looks fierce and he is absolutely positive that there is something wrong with the way he’s wired because he wants nothing more than to push her against his car and feel the teeth she keeps flashing him on his lips. 

“Just give me a minute.” She grinds out. He backs off and she walks a few paces ahead. If anyone was watching them, they’d never know that she was trying to quietly kill something fiery and dangerous inside of herself. She knows he has a point. She knows that the best possible chance they have is through spying on Nick. 

Declan’s leaning against his car, hands on the roof, head down, when she looks back.

“Is anything he told me useful?”

He shakes his head. “Ashley was from Virginia. She went to Princeton. Of course, I wouldn’t actually know. “ He chuckles darkly. “I don’t know when she started lying. I don’t know when she was put in my path or what they told her.”

Helen walks back over to him but stops with more distance between them than they usually have, not fully over her anger. 

“I’ll do it.”

He lifts his head up and looks at her. It makes her feel too exposed. She hates it. 

“Ok.” He says, doesn’t second guess her decision, doesn’t try to back down from this path. “Get in.” He opens the door and waits for her to slide in.

The interior smells like him, of course, and it sets her on edge. She’s too out of her element. Making deals, digging herself in deeper with Declan Lynch. 

He drives like he talks, smooth and quick and elegant.

At her apartment, neither say anything but he follows her up. 

Inside, she flicks the lights on and sits her bag down, fishing out her phone. 

“Do you want to hear it?”

“What?” he asks, walking around as she had in his apartment.

“The date.”

She moves into the dinning room and turns on the recording. She re-listens, trying to figure out if anything may sound familiar to Declan. If there is anything she can use. Declan’s standing across the table from her, stiff shouldered and serious. 

“Well, he’s good.” He comments with a slick grin. 

“What?”

“He’s flirting like it’s his job.”

“It kind of is.”

Declan moves to the head of the table. Closer. 

“You’re going to need to be careful, Helen.”

“What, so that I don’t fall for him?” 

“No, Jesus.” He scoffs. “If you wanted some sycophantic boy you’d have settled down with some Kennedy descendent by now.”

“You don’t really know me.”

“He doesn’t really know you.” Closer. Almost like he isn’t consciously moving. She watches him, dissects his body language. 

“You need to be careful because he has targeted you specifically. He has targeted your family specifically. This whole thing may be about my family but this man has one job and that’s you.”

He’s too close. 

Almost touching and he looks like he knows she’d melt for him if he touched her. 

She clicks the recording off and moves around the table with purpose, heading back into the living room, knowing he’ll follow. 

“It’s late. We’ll talk more when I have an idea of how I want to proceed. I want to research him a bit before making a move.”

Her hand is on the doorknob and he moves in close again. She holds up her free hand.

“Declan. I know what you’re doing and I’m having exactly none of it.”

He grins and crosses his arms. “What am I doing?”

“The random girl earlier, this, whatever this is. You’re alone. You’re hurt. You’re trying to make yourself feel better.”

His grin doesn’t falter but he doesn’t deny it. He moves forward and takes her hand from the doorknob and kisses it. 

He closes the door behind himself and Helen is left with the vaguely acrid smell of fireworks. 

 

When her alarm wakes her in the morning, she finds a text from Declan.

“You were right. I’m sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, the comments on this have been so lovely and encouraging! I'm thrilled that so many people seem to be enjoying this.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Declan should probably seek professional help.

“Tell me again how you got the door code?” Declan asks as the light on the key pad of Nick’s apartment blinks green and Helen pushes the door open. 

“It’s the last four of his social. Lots of people use that or a birthdate.” What she doesn’t admit to is the fact that she stopped by alone to try it out before doing it for an audience. Helen smiles, pulling him inside and kicking the door shut behind them. 

“Great, and you got his social-“

“From his file at work, of course. Think.”

He makes an important mental note to never make her mad. 

Declan scans the apartment, judging the traditional couch and the television that Nick hadn’t even bothered to have wall mounted. There are nautical themed picture frames and a smudged glass coffee table. Declan hates him. 

No morals and no style. He inspects one of the pictures. Father and son standing on the dock together, smiling for the camera. 

He remembers a camera being shoved in his own face, maybe at sixteen? He could drive legally, that was the important part, though he’d learned to drive much earlier. The man had grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back after slamming his face down onto the steering wheel. “Smile for the camera.” The man goaded. “Gonna be on a lot of news stations.” The man’s body crumpled inwards, onto him, when the bullets hit from behind. Niall had let out a celebratory whoop, gun still in hand, as Declan shoved the body off of himself. 

Yeah, maybe sailing would have been a better bonding activity. 

“What are you doing?” He asks, sitting the picture back down.

“Installing cameras. Find anything?” 

“No, not really.” He finds her in the kitchen, reaching up to hide the smallest camera he’s ever seen on top of his fridge. It’s not quite inconspicuous enough. It makes him nervous. 

She turns and smiles. “The feed comes directly to an app on my phone.”

“If he were to find this he’d know it was you.”

“How?”

“He’d assume. I can get something smaller.” He says it like a man trained to buy himself time. They can’t risk Nick finding the cameras.

She scoffs. “They don’t make anything smaller than this. Look, it’s as small as the head of an eraser.”

“I can get you one smaller.” He’s imagining it already. Maybe something the size of the head of a pin. He wonders about invisible cameras, stickers that blend into the wall. He’ll figure out the details before Sunday.

Plus, if Declan says that he needs it dreamt up that day, it will give him a chance to put in the security system that he bought for the barns without a fight. There would be a fight anyway if he ever learned that the alarm is set up to alert Mr. Gray and not the police.

“I’m going to look for a computer.” She says, shoving her tiny camera back into her bag with a hint of frustration. She had scoured the Internet for hours, looking for one she was satisfied with. She’s pretty sure that by this point, she’s on several NSA lists. 

“Wouldn’t it make sense for him to use the one he takes with him?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve read that people tend to have doubles for their double lives. Say his girlfriend wants to watch a show on Netflix and accidently finds something confidential pulled up. He’d obviously have to have her killed and he might really like her. She’s probably charming and brilliant.”

He scoffs and follows her around the apartment as she searches. 

“What would she watch on Netflix?” He asks, crossing his arms as she looks through Nick’s desk. 

“Real House Wives of Beverly Hills.”

“Bullshit.” He calls.

She smiles, full on, lighting up her whole face. 

“Primarily documentaries. Currently in the true crime genre.” 

“So is this where you’ve learned about criminal double lives?”

“It’s fascinating.” He voice gets a little faster, as if she’s used to being interrupted when ranting about an interest. “Do you know that often, their families don’t even know? They keep them out of it so they can’t be pulled in if anything happens.”

Luckily she turns back around to search the closet. Declan shuts his eyes tight and thinks about the morals of criminals. They do tend to keep their loved ones out of the business.

She cackles from somewhere deep and shadowy inside the closet and comes out with a sleek laptop under her arm and makes her way to the kitchen. He shakes his head but follows behind her. She pulls out a seat at the table as Declan looks in the fridge, judging Nick’s lack of acceptable food. Protein shakes and take-out containers stand alongside a half-empty carton of eggs that Declan can only imagine Nick cracks into smoothies. Lunchmeat, how quaint. He closes the door when he hears Helen typing something into the computer. He sits next to her, watching her ignore him completely. 

She types in the password and gets denied. Pouting, she tries again.

Denied. 

“Son of a bitch.” She swears. He watches her pull several things out of her bag. A memory card and a marbled bullet journal. She flips through the journal, chewing at one of her polished nails. Inside, she’s scribbled notes under the calligraphy heading “Hacking.” Declan can’t decide if he wants to laugh or not. He decides against it when she types something else in and the computer’s home screen comes up. She doesn’t do anything but grin into her reflection on the screen. 

“So, what are you doing?” He asks, scooting a bit closer. He’s been overly cautious to keep his distance today but something about watching her commit crimes is oddly arousing. He should consider talking to a therapist some day. He likes the way her dainty fingers fly over the keys, the way her eyes light up with each triumph. 

“I’m uploading a spyware to his system.” She shakes her head. “It’s not a perfect situation but it’s the fastest.”

He wonders how that would sound lower, softer, breathier. She could just explain how to track someone’s Internet movements to him while he tries to distract her, get her breath to hitch in her throat. 

“Won’t he have something on his computer to protect against spyware?”

“I’m removing it.” She says, focused, mouth slightly open. “But still, we’re on a time crunch. If he gets a virus or starts getting pop up ads, he’s going to notice that something is wrong. The first thing he’s going to check is the firewall and when it isn’t there…” 

“Jesus.” Declan says, running a hand over his face.

“It isn’t the most elegant solution.” She admits.

“So what will the spyware let you do?”

“I’ll be able to see everything he does online. Every file he opens, every email he sends.” She’s grinning again and he can almost feel the adrenaline running under her skin. Helen’s always been attractive, all long limbs and lightly golden skin, but like this she’s radiant. 

His phone buzzes with a notification. He flips it over; happy for a distraction as he can feel a bad decision bubbling up inside of him like a laugh. “Someone just tried to access one of my off shore accounts. Said she was my wife.” He grins at the email. 

“You’re smiling. Good news? Secret fetishes about someone stealing all of your money?”

“Red herrings. Just made them after Ashley left.” 

Helen lets it sink in for a minute. “So we have a rough location then?” 

“I’m going to call the detective working her case and tell them she may have tried to access it.” He taps the phone against his chin as he considers it. “Or, maybe just set someone on her trail and see what we can find out.”

“Declan Lynch you are an evil genius.” She says it reverently. 

He’s spent too much time in the past today and his dark mood isn’t the kind that he should be alone with. He wants to hang on to this feeling, understood, accepted, found interesting. He wonders briefly if he could entice Helen by offering stories about crime rings that would put anything on Netflix to shame. About men who pull out people’s molars while their children watch. Not a common dinner discussion but Helen isn’t really common.

Her phone rings and she pales, flashing the screen to him. Nick.

“You can tell her I’ll be in after lunch.” She says, picking up on the third ring. “Oh? Huh.” She pauses as he talks. She lets out a giggle without changing her face much at all and it terrifies him how she can do that. It’s a learned thing, that self-preservation, the scam. “That sounds like just what I need, actually.” She purrs. “Text me your address and I’ll see you at eight.” She says, as if she isn’t sitting inside his apartment as she talks.

“I’m going over to Nick’s tonight.” She says, after hanging up.

“You mean you’re coming back here tonight?” He corrects, grinning.

“Linguistics. Is it his apartment when he isn’t here?”

“Like if a tree falls in the woods?”

She nods.

“Yes, legally, yes.”

She waves it off.

“What did your mother say?”

Helen tries very hard to look unaffected. “She assumed I had quit. She wasn’t surprised. Said she hadn’t expected me to stay as long as I did.” She looks dejected, visibly swallowing as she stares at the screen. He wonders about the legacy of being the sibling of a wonder child. It marks you, makes it easy to find each other.

“Wait, you’re going to be here alone with Nick?” He says, his brain catching up. 

“That’s the plan.”

“Absolutely the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

“You’re the one who wanted me to date him.” She says, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Yes but alone?”

“Typically when dating, it is two people alone. There are obvious exceptions but-“

“He could take you. He could suspect something. He could be impatient and just want information quickly.”

She turns in the chair to look at him. “This is going to be fine. In fact, I can probably get him to inadvertently show me if he has anything hidden around the house.”

“How?”

“Walk around, see if there is anything I’m not allowed to touch.”

“We could light the place up and see what he grabs.”

She stares at him hard. “Is that a Sherlock Holmes reference?”

He laughs. 

Yes and no. He knows that Holmes used that tactic on Irene Adler. 

He also knows that one of the outer barns was torched in the middle of the night. 

“Yes.” He tells her.

 

They set it up. She calls it failsafe. He knows it could fail. After dinner, Helen and Nick will head back to his apartment. Declan will be parked where he can see into the living room window. She’s supposed to get his attention if she needs help. 

“This is not a good plan.” He points out.

“It’s not the worst plan.”

“It’s barely a plan at all.”

“That’s because I’m operating under the impression that I’ll be fine.”

He rubs his temples and she slides out of the car to join Nick in the restaurant.

Another well-reviewed place with small dishes. Declan smiles and heads to the store before scoping out a parking spot.

 

He makes himself comfortable, stretching out over the front seats and keeping the music just loud enough to feel the bass of it in his back.

A car shoots down the street like a bullet, chrome and gray and blur-fast. He thinks about afternoons spent doing donuts, windows down, hair blowing while his brothers laughed in the car with him. At fourteen he could drive better than most adults. At sixteen he was learning defensive driving. At sixteen he was shoved into the trunk for protection as he listened to his father get knocked around. It was a cycle, he dealt with all of the things Niall never wanted the others to be a part of. He learned the things he needed to in order to be the one his father drug along in the middle of the night. Looking back, he can see he wasn’t just being groomed to help Niall. Niall was building a legacy.

If Niall hadn’t died, all Declan’s work would have been for nothing. All the nights spent terrified, the attacks from his father’s associates, it wouldn’t have been enough to keep his brother out of his father’s world. He would have sucked him in and it would have eaten him alive.

He was the one learned how to shoot, to keep a burner phone, how to make sure you aren’t being followed. He was the one who took the hits and the bad nights and made sure his father woke up. He was supposed to find him that night. He should be the one with the image of their father’s body burned behind his eyes.

Up in the apartment, he can see Helen and Nick standing near the kitchen, where they had sat earlier as she had deftly hacked into his computer. Nick passes her a glass and she doesn’t drink it, sitting it down on the table instead and moving closer to Nick. Declan smiles, he wouldn’t have drank it either but he’s unsure if she didn’t due to quality or a fear of it being drugged.

He feels like he should look away. They’re kissing, her hands in his hair and his around her waist. He walks her back and she sits on the back of his couch, hands on her back, body pressing closer. 

He really should look away. But if she’s in distress, how will he know?

If she asks, he’ll just say he couldn’t see them. 

He doesn’t know Nick, but he hates him more with each passing minute. And god is he boring. Maybe it’s like when people watch sports and yell at the screen. You can see all the mistakes, all the missed opportunities because you aren’t the one playing.

The plays Declan would make would be very different. Helen’s hair is long and begging for a hand in it, pulling just gently enough to tip her chin a bit. From there, he’d have access to her throat. He’d kiss along her jaw, right underneath her ear, before pressing kisses down the column of her throat. He’s put his free hand at her hip, her legs around his waist keeping her in place on her precarious spot on the back of the couch. He’d press in close, letting himself feel the heat of her as he bites at her collarbone. 

Nick is unzipping the back of her dress. 

Declan sits up, uncomfortable, and pulls himself back to reality. He doesn’t like it. Reality isn't as much fun.

He watches the zipper come down painfully slow, exposing gorgeous expanses of skin as it goes. He gets out of the car and walks across the street, keeping his head down. 

As if God or the Universe approves, a resident is fumbling with the door when he gets there. She balances groceries and take-out expertly, but not expertly enough.

He coughs and pulls out his keys as he approaches in order to avoid startling her. He smiles when she glances back at him. 

“Do you need help with those?” He asks. 

“Maybe? Or you could just put your code in and grab the door?” She offers.

“Oh, I’m here to visit a friend.” He says, holding his arms out for a bag.

He watches as suspicion crosses her features. “You could just get him to buzz you in.”

Declan laughs boyishly, shaking his head. “He’s in the shower. I’m a bit early.”

Nick probably has his mediocre hands all over Helen’s back by now. 

“Yeah, ok.” The woman says, obviously not believing him. He takes the bag of takeout from her while she puts her code in and opens the door. Declan holds it for her, nodding before pulling his phone out and faking a conversation. He takes the stairs, pulling the first fire alarm he sees and sneaking back out to the car.

The fire trucks come just a few minutes after the building evacuates. 

He watches Helen kiss Nick goodbye before starting down the road. Nick doesn’t watch her walk away and it makes Declan’s blood boil. He starts the car and pulls up to their designated meeting point a block away. 

Helen gets into the car without a word.

Her hair is tousled, she smells like Nick and Declan wants to punch something.

Someone.

“What did you do?” She asks.

“Never mind, it isn’t important.”

Helen sighs.

“Are you ok?” He asks, trying to look at her face, to get some kind of gage of what she’s thinking. 

“Yeah, starving, but I’m ok.”

“You don’t have to date him.”

She laughs a little. An exhale of breath.

“Were you uncomfortable? We’ll find a different way. I can get these security cameras that are undetectable and they’ll go straight to your phone and you already have his computer syncing to yours.”

“I’m fine, really.”

“Yeah? I mean, if you liked it.”

She cuts him off with a look. “My mind was somewhere else. It was nothing.”

“That’s very Lie Back and Think of England of you.”

Another glare. He wonders what she was thinking about. Interrogation techniques, probably. 

“Here.“ He says, handing her a bag.

“And this is?”

She pulls out the lunchable and stares at it as he laughs and pulls away from the curb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry this one took so long.  
> I want to thank everyone for the lovely comments, they make my day!


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